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princessrory's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Addiction, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Dysphoria, War, and Classism
scifi_rat's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
overall rating: 2.5 stars
+plot: [.5] i'm not always a huge fantasy fan no matter how hard i try to like this genre but the plot for this one was surprisingly interesting and intriguing enough for me to engage in. the reveal at the end was planted really well early on and genuinely surprised me.
+prose: [.25] it was good but it wasn't great. something about the moodiness of it felt very ya in not a good way. the differences between povs didn't exist and the only way i could tell apart everen's and arcady's was because of the second person use in everen's part. speaking of, i was glad the second person use actually had a purpose and somewhat of a plot relevance so kudos for that.
+pace: [.25] if the book only had everen's and arcady's povs, the pacing would've been just right. however the addition of sorin's and cassia's povs added nothing interesting to the plot that couldn't have been done with the first two povs, and it pulled you out of the story and slowed down the pacing considerably. i had to skim those povs simply because they were uninteresting and added nothing.
+main characters: [.25] everen and arcady were interesting enough on the surface but maybe it's because of the melodramatics but i was not emotionally invested in them. although i did want to keep reading to find out what happened to them. the inevitable betrayal did not make me feel dread the way it would for characters i cared about. instead i was just looking forward to seeing how they would react with that same kind of glee you feel when you're watching reality tv and the contestants get what they had coming. it was more of unattached entertainment.
+side characters: [0] if i only felt detachedly entertained by the main characters, i felt next to nothing about the rest of the characters. nothing memorable or interesting was happening in this department and everyone just felt like props for the main plot. the only one that piqued my interest was mariel but she was used for the plot and discarded immediately.
+worldbuilding: [.25] decent and solid enough but left me with some questions, especially the way the society dealt with gender. we are constantly told that this society doesn't care about binary gender roles but that's not necessarily ever reflected in anything concrete. there's also a few parts when arcady says that people wouldn't know what to make of their gender fluidity, which just contradicts the setup of people not caring about gender. there are a lot of vague contradictions and the world, other than the magic system, feels more or less generic fantasy.
+tropes: [.25] i did enjoy the trope of close proximity but characters can't touch. it actually was able to create genuine chemistry between everen and arcady. however the enemies to lovers part was not done well at all and was at times unnecessary and even juvenile in a very ya way.
+ending: [.25] i do wish the book would've ended one chapter earlier than it did but i do understand why it didn't.
+entertainment value: [.25] i did enjoy reading most of it even if i wasn't necessarily invested emotionally. it just kind of felt like reading relationship gossip.
+continuing to sequel?: [.25] i personally will not be but the setup for the next book was well done and i can absolutely see why people would.
+plot: [.5] i'm not always a huge fantasy fan no matter how hard i try to like this genre but the plot for this one was surprisingly interesting and intriguing enough for me to engage in. the reveal at the end was planted really well early on and genuinely surprised me.
+prose: [.25] it was good but it wasn't great. something about the moodiness of it felt very ya in not a good way. the differences between povs didn't exist and the only way i could tell apart everen's and arcady's was because of the second person use in everen's part. speaking of, i was glad the second person use actually had a purpose and somewhat of a plot relevance so kudos for that.
+pace: [.25] if the book only had everen's and arcady's povs, the pacing would've been just right. however the addition of sorin's and cassia's povs added nothing interesting to the plot that couldn't have been done with the first two povs, and it pulled you out of the story and slowed down the pacing considerably. i had to skim those povs simply because they were uninteresting and added nothing.
+main characters: [.25] everen and arcady were interesting enough on the surface but maybe it's because of the melodramatics but i was not emotionally invested in them. although i did want to keep reading to find out what happened to them. the inevitable betrayal did not make me feel dread the way it would for characters i cared about. instead i was just looking forward to seeing how they would react with that same kind of glee you feel when you're watching reality tv and the contestants get what they had coming. it was more of unattached entertainment.
+side characters: [0] if i only felt detachedly entertained by the main characters, i felt next to nothing about the rest of the characters. nothing memorable or interesting was happening in this department and everyone just felt like props for the main plot. the only one that piqued my interest was mariel but she was used for the plot and discarded immediately.
+worldbuilding: [.25] decent and solid enough but left me with some questions, especially the way the society dealt with gender. we are constantly told that this society doesn't care about binary gender roles but that's not necessarily ever reflected in anything concrete. there's also a few parts when arcady says that people wouldn't know what to make of their gender fluidity, which just contradicts the setup of people not caring about gender. there are a lot of vague contradictions and the world, other than the magic system, feels more or less generic fantasy.
+tropes: [.25] i did enjoy the trope of close proximity but characters can't touch. it actually was able to create genuine chemistry between everen and arcady. however the enemies to lovers part was not done well at all and was at times unnecessary and even juvenile in a very ya way.
+ending: [.25] i do wish the book would've ended one chapter earlier than it did but i do understand why it didn't.
+entertainment value: [.25] i did enjoy reading most of it even if i wasn't necessarily invested emotionally. it just kind of felt like reading relationship gossip.
+continuing to sequel?: [.25] i personally will not be but the setup for the next book was well done and i can absolutely see why people would.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Alcohol
sophiesmallhands's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Gore, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Sexual content, Blood, Police brutality, Colonisation, and War
dreadspawn's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
kiwij96's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A fun and easy read, with relatively short chapters. An interesting concept for sure, writing both first, second and third perspectives, following a dragon chasing a prophecy, a thief trying to protect their family name, and a young acolyte torn between right and wrong. Good discussions on gender identity too. Fun fantasy heist with friendships, trust, betrayal, and morality.
Definitely could have done with more worldbuilding and plot written into the text. The characters were very "woe is me" at times where it wasn't needed. I appreciated how Everen's POV included the humans teaching him how their society worked in terms of how gender identity and pronouns worked. Also, was not a fan of the romance subplot. It would have worked much better if the characters just learned each other's surnames as an act of trust.
Definitely could have done with more worldbuilding and plot written into the text. The characters were very "woe is me" at times where it wasn't needed. I appreciated how Everen's POV included the humans teaching him how their society worked in terms of how gender identity and pronouns worked. Also, was not a fan of the romance subplot. It would have worked much better if the characters just learned each other's surnames as an act of trust.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Sexual content
hollowpointe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Holy shit
Okay I loved so much about this. One- the amount of world building alone was enough to keep me engaged. The dragon religion spawning off from vanishing them centuries ago? The discussions of caste and honorifics, the concept of becoming starving, the difference between countries views on gender- it all kept me very entertained and intrigued. Also, Everen and Arcady both having their own issues and having to work past them to even BEGIN trusting each other was a good thing to witness, mostly because a lot of what I've read recently is instant trust or one big feat creates trust.
All in all, the heist and the assassin plotlines were well balanced to me and I thoroughly enjoyed them both.
As for characters, Soren was an interesting arc as she very much is codependent on Magnes who is also like the worst and did actually make me angry. An antagonist that's truly despicable, he was perfect for the mood of the book.
The title alone also was very pleasing for me especially when it occurred to me it was a reference to whale falls- something that usually creates and maintains an ecosystem for years where they fall and decay- much like how Arcady is now thriving due to Everen falling.
Dear lord this one won't be leaving my brain for a while.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Terminal illness, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol
Minor: Ableism, Cursing, Homophobia, Medical content, and Abandonment
*Holy shit* *slight spoilers* Okay I loved so much about this. One- the amount of world building alone was enough to keep me engaged. The dragon religion spawning off from vanishing them centuries ago? The discussions of caste and honorifics, the concept of becoming starving, the difference between countries views on gender- it all kept me very entertained and intrigued. Also, Everen and Arcady both having their own issues and having to work past them to even BEGIN trusting each other was a good thing to witness, mostly because a lot of what I've read recently is instant trust or one big feat creates trust. All in all, the heist and the assassin plotlines were well balanced to me and I thoroughly enjoyed them both. As for characters, Soren was an interesting arc as she very much is codependent on Magnes who is also like the worst and did actually make me angry. An antagonist that's truly despicable, he was perfect for the mood of the book. The title alone also was very pleasing for me especially when it occurred to me it was a reference to whale falls- something that usually creates and maintains an ecosystem for years where they fall and decay- much like how Arcady is now thriving due to Everen falling. Dear lord this one won't be leaving my brain for a while.cookiecat73's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I enjoyed this, but I didn't love it. We have two main points of view, and one or two more which come up more rarely. The main two are Arcady and Everen. I liked Arcady a lot, their backstory was pretty dark but I enjoyed their personality and their motivations were cool and intresting, and it means a lot to me to have a main character who is canonically and openely genderqueer. Everen on the other hand was a superior brat. I know that's on purpose and he does improve and I did like him more by the end, but for the most part I didn't like him or enjoy his povs very much. The world building and plot were mostly just fine, I didn't have any major critisisms, gripes, or things I hated, but I didn't love it either. I guess it's just not completely my kinda book, and that's fine, I still liked it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Grief, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug use, Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and War
norwegianforestreader's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
bookstarbri's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Admittedly, I have a small obsession with dragons.
When it comes to books with dragons, I go weak in the knees because dragons are SO cool. And this book truly didn't disappoint me. I think it was very close to perfection. I had a few nit-picky gripes, which I'll get into in a bit, but first I want to talk about how much I loved this book as a whole. I know a lot of people will not like the way it is written, and I can understand why. There are 5 POVs total, with it mostly going back and forth between 2 (and a third a few times as well, though not as frequently). This back and forth may be a little jarring especially since the POVs are not just different characters but also different styles of POV as well. We have one that is standard first person, one that is first but is also sort of told like a letter so it dips into second. The remaining ones are all third. I thought this was really cool and a very interesting way to write a story like this, and I appreciated the experimental storytelling a lot and really enjoyed it. It made me especially love Everen's chapters!
Onto the characters, I thought they were (mostly) great! I LOVED Arcady and Everen. The side characters were interesting as well. One thing that kept me from giving this 5 stars was that I was bored with Sorin's chapters in the middle? There were definitely times when I just wanted to skip her POV and go back to the main story. Her story fits into this one and it all ties together, and I actually loved her POVs in the beginning, but those middle ones dragged on just a bit. Otherwise, I was really captivated in this story pretty much from start to finish. I thought the pacing was great and the events leading up to the finale were amazing!
This book had some great twists as well. There were three times when my mouth dropped because I hadn't expected something. Truly, it was awesome how easily L.R. Lam was able to bring something up and take it somewhere I hadn't expected at all without it feeling like a cheap surprise.
This is the start of a series and I am so excited that it is! I can't WAIT to read book 2. I loved this ending it made me feel so many things. This book is a new favorite and I have high hopes for book 2!
Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
When it comes to books with dragons, I go weak in the knees because dragons are SO cool. And this book truly didn't disappoint me. I think it was very close to perfection. I had a few nit-picky gripes, which I'll get into in a bit, but first I want to talk about how much I loved this book as a whole. I know a lot of people will not like the way it is written, and I can understand why. There are 5 POVs total, with it mostly going back and forth between 2 (and a third a few times as well, though not as frequently). This back and forth may be a little jarring especially since the POVs are not just different characters but also different styles of POV as well. We have one that is standard first person, one that is first but is also sort of told like a letter so it dips into second. The remaining ones are all third. I thought this was really cool and a very interesting way to write a story like this, and I appreciated the experimental storytelling a lot and really enjoyed it. It made me especially love Everen's chapters!
Onto the characters, I thought they were (mostly) great! I LOVED Arcady and Everen. The side characters were interesting as well. One thing that kept me from giving this 5 stars was that I was bored with Sorin's chapters in the middle? There were definitely times when I just wanted to skip her POV and go back to the main story. Her story fits into this one and it all ties together, and I actually loved her POVs in the beginning, but those middle ones dragged on just a bit. Otherwise, I was really captivated in this story pretty much from start to finish. I thought the pacing was great and the events leading up to the finale were amazing!
This book had some great twists as well. There were three times when my mouth dropped because I hadn't expected something. Truly, it was awesome how easily L.R. Lam was able to bring something up and take it somewhere I hadn't expected at all without it feeling like a cheap surprise.
This is the start of a series and I am so excited that it is! I can't WAIT to read book 2. I loved this ending it made me feel so many things. This book is a new favorite and I have high hopes for book 2!
Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death and War
Minor: Confinement
bigteo's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I don’t usually read fantasy, but this did intrigue me as having a dragon main character. Sadly it fell completely flat. I’m rating it higher than I would another run of the mill fantasy YA because at least there were some plot points and twists that were somewhat decent.
The writing style wasn’t awful but it also wasn’t exactly great.
The characters, especially Arcady (the human), were so painfully bland and boring and nothing about them made me invested in the slightest. Everen (the dragon) had the most potential I suppose. There were a total of about FIVE different character POVs, and they changed each chapter. They also changed perspective; Everen narrated in second person, Arcady in first, and Sorrin (another human assassin character that had no real impact on the plot and never interacted with the main cast) narrated in third person. I can’t help but feel this was a huge detriment for the book. Why was it necessary at all? Wouldn’t the book have been better if we simply stuck with Everen, since he’s a classic fish-out-of-water character that doesn’t understand human customs and thus would have been a great way to contrast the cultural differences between dragons and the humans of the world? I also can’t help but feel that the choice for Everen to narrate about Arcady in second person was simply a way to avoid having to use any pronouns for Arcady, which would serve to make Arcady into a self insert character for the readers.
Anyways, back to the characters. Arcady was boring and edgy and “I’m not like other thieves, I steal for good reasons” and “I hate the rich” in a way that echoed the author’s sentiments about the class system and capitalism in real life. The issue with that it lacks subtlety, is preachy, and doesn’t really fit in a fantasy society which has different rules from real life. Their motives didn’t really make sense either. They’re trying to find proof that their grandfather didn’t cause a plague and clear their family name, and the solution to that is to… go to school? Under the same government system that discriminated against them? They’re a thief, can’t they simply steal the information that their grandfather was framed? Shouldn’t the character (and the thief guild, called the Marricks) be aiming more for a societal upheaval? They complain so much about the rich upper class in the book that you’d expect there to be more of a payoff.
Everen was also a missed opportunity. He didn’t really feel like a dragon at all. I’ve seen some complain about his “I hate all humans” attitude but I feel like if the author pushed it more strongly it could have been interesting to make his prejudices against the human race come under scrutiny when faced with having to adapt to human customs. The author could have set Arcady to challenge Everen’s preconceived notions about how humans are inherently evil and thus facilitated his development. Nothing about his and Arcady’s relationship makes sense. There is literally no reason for Everen to like them at the end of the book. Nothing significant happens between them for Everen to suddenly want to save their life and save humanity.
The biggest letdown of this book by far was the abysmal world building.
It feels like the author infodumps completely irrelevant information in an unnatural way and then fails to build a cohesive and interesting fantasy world. There’s a scene in which Everen and Arcady share information about eachother’s cultures and instead of learning anything interesting or having the characters challenge eachother, we get a page long rant about how everyone should accept everyone’s preferred pronouns and how the pronoun system works, which completely takes me out of the story and seems so bizarrely out of place. There’s no issue with wanting to be inclusive, but the way the character exposits this information is so obviously out of place and comes across as the author basically directly preaching to the reader. There are so many other instances too where the author will tell us directly about something with absolutely no subtlety or relevance to the plot or characters.
Speaking of pronouns, it’s explained that people of higher status will be given a capitalised pronoun, like “the priest drunk from Their cup,” as an example. The problem with the capitalisation is that it’s completely unnatural with modern English and makes certain passages downright confusing to read. I found myself having to reread sections with capitalised pronouns because I kept on thinking it came after a full stop. I don’t see how this piece of world building was necessary seeing as there are already ways to show respect in English (like honorifics, which already exist in the world as “Sar” which is like “Sir” I guess.) For all the author’s insistence of correct pronouns, there was a passage in the book in which a character describes the Jaskian language (a rival country/city state) as being ugly and harsh. Nothing is done to challenge this. Jaskian’s have more rigid ideas about gender therefore their culture/language sucks, which is definitely fantasy xenophobia, no?
As an aside, I still don’t know what a “Drakine” actually is, obviously it’s some sort of upper class-man but it is literally never explained. That’s a common issue you’ll find in this book.
The magic system is also poorly explained. I personally dislike the trope of having all humans capable of magic since it alienates me from relating to the human characters and their struggles, but this might just be a personal preference so I digress. There are other reviews that talk about the fantasy world building more thoroughly than I can since I don’t read fantasy often and therefore I don’t recognise certain tropes as easily.
My final criticism that I haven’t seen discussed in other reviews is that this world literally contains dragon-gods and shadow rift creatures but nothing else? Wyverns are basically carrier pigeons, and there are passing mentions of mythical creatures like selkies, but no mention of them actually existing? The story takes place in a singular city which was also a missed opportunity to have the characters in different locations with different spectacular fantasy species that add flavour to the setting.
Anyways this review is way too long already so to sum it up i felt like this book was a bad, aimless mess with unlikeable characters that reek of missed opportunities. At least the twist at the end with a certain character was kind of decent? Not nearly enough to get me interested in reading the sequel when it comes out.
Content Warnings
Minor: Blood, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic